Governing Party Needs to Focus on Kitchen Table Issues
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
It's not too bad for President Lee Myung-bak to suffer a poor job approval rating in his early presidency as the disappointing figure should force him to sharpen his leadership skills, said a first-term lawmaker.
Rep. Kang Yong-seok, 40, of the Grand National Party (GNP) said that Lee would have learned a valuable lesson from his disappointing approval rating.
``The President will have learned that he should listen carefully to what the public wants. He will become a more responsive leader after the trials and errors of his early presidency,'' Rep. Kang said in an interview with The Korea Times last week.
A recent poll conducted by an in-house think tank of the GNP said Lee's rating has slipped down to the low 20 percentage range in May, which gave a red light to Lee's presidency. The support for his predecessor President Roh Moo-hyun was in the 20 percent range when he was a lame duck.
Lawyer-turned-lawmaker Kang won the April 9 election in the Mapo district, Seoul, at his second attempt.
Kang claimed President Lee would not repeat what he called the failed path, which Roh Moo-hyun took during his five-year rule. Kang said Lee could end up positioning himself as an effective leader.
Kang, however, said, ``It is premature to assess the effectiveness of the presidential leadership now as only three months have passed following inauguration. We should be more patient and wait to see how Lee's management of the economy turns out in the future.''
The lawmaker said that the opposition's portrayal of the GNP as ``a party for the top 1 percent of citizens'' is probably a reflection that the GNP was not there for working class families.
Opposition parties also called the governing party ``a group of hard-core conservatives,'' and ``a party representing the best interests of the rich.''
``GNP lawmakers should work out kitchen table issues for the poor and middle class,'' said Kang.
Asked about his views on the rift between the presidential office and the ruling party over major agendas such as food aid to North Korea and the cross-country waterway plan, Kang said it is not desirable for the two sides to pronounce different voices over major national agendas.
``It only makes the public confused,'' said Rep. Kang.
The lawmaker said the past three months was a learning period for both the GNP as well as the presidential office.